Tesla Model X (file photo)
In a quarterly earnings statement today, Tesla said its next new vehicle, the Model X crossover, will be delayed until the third quarter of 2015.
Production of the electric vehicle had been scheduled to begin by the end of the year.
As many as 20,000 potential Model X customers have put deposits on the vehicles, according to some reports.
In a statement, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and chief financial officer Deepak Ahuja blamed the Model X delays on additional testing.
“We recently decided to build in significantly more validation testing time to achieve the best Model X possible,” Musk and Ahuja said in the statement.
They acknowledged in the statement that the delay of the Model X was a “legitimate criticism of Tesla.”
“We prefer to forgo revenue rather than bring a product to market that does not delight customers,” they said in the statement.
Tesla posted a net loss of $74.7 million in the third quarter, which was better than analysts had expected, according to Automotive News.
Revenue nearly doubled in the third quarter, rising from $431.3 million in the third quarter of 2013 to $851.8 million.
Operating expenses – mostly related to research and development – rose to $291 million in the third quarter, up from $133 million a year ago.
The company had $2.4 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the latest quarter, Automotive News said.